Season 1 Episode 9
Forget me not (Released December 1, 2007) Kei meets Kyosuke at the park so she can vent about Hiro. It seems like everyone around her is pursuing their goals: Hiro is drawing his mangas, Chihiro is writing her novel, Kyosuke is doing his film, but she sits with her bad leg doing nothing. Kyosuke listens sympathetically and tries to cheer her up. (It is noteworthy that he is not filming her when he comforts her.) Hiro finds Miyako at a public telephone booth in town. He tries to apologize for Sunday's debacle, but she waves it off as unnecessary. While walking along the beach in the moonlight, she says that she envies his freedom to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist. He replies that he isn't free at all: He is a slave to his obligations and deadlines. It is one of the reasons he had to move away from his father (a respected painter who thinks mangas are crass). Hiro tells Miyako that she is the free-spirit, not him. She replies that whatever freedom she has is empty. She asks him half-jokingly if they can "forget everything and run away together". He explains that he can't because he has duties and responsibilities, although he admits that he does feel relaxed whenever she's around. She tells him she feels the same way - that she can let go of all of her stress whenever he is near her. And then, standing on the beach in the moonlight, with the waves gently lapping the shore, she surprises him with a big kiss (see below). After the kiss she teases him to say something in response - a romantic line from one his shōjo mangas perhaps? He tries some lines and flubs them. She makes fun of his bad delivery, and so he shuts her up with a return kiss. Their feelings now confirmed, they go back to his place and make love. While still in bed, she has him promise "to always look at me" and he makes the promise. She then tells Hiro a story about a child who once upon a time was placed in an isolation chamber as a scientific experiment (a thinly veiled allegory of her own life). She tells him that she never wants to disappear from anyone's heart ever again. That evening, Renji visits Yuu Himura on the church roof. Renji admits that Chihiro's cold reboot scared him. Himura says that's a normal reaction, then he says that people only experience loneliness if they've known joy, and conversely people experience happiness only if they've known despair. He cautions Renji that by choosing to stay with Chihiro that they will be doomed to suffer. Himura ends the meeting by warning Renji that he will need to 'confront' what Chihiro is writing in her story, but Renji does not understand what he's talking about. Renji visits Chihiro and tries to cheer her up. He takes her to see Sumire and Kuze, and they try to cheer her up as well. Renji has to remind her to call him 'Renji-kun' and that they are in love. Chihiro rereads her diary three times and eventually comes to act like the person described in her diary. As Renji and Chihiro walk through a cemetery together, Chihiro waxes philosophical, wondering aloud what memories really are. Do memories define a person's spirit or identity? She concludes that they do, and therefore Yesterday's Chihiro (the person who had loved Renji) has died. Today's Chihiro is merely a replacement. Upon hearing this Renji becomes anxious and frustrated, and he continuously repeats that this is not true: She is the same person that he has always known and loved. As Renji walks home alone, he spots the sand castle that he and Chihiro had built together the previous day. The sand castle is still standing, for the tide had not yet washed it away. Renji smashes it in anger, demanding to know why a sand castle can still exist when Chihiro's memories cannot. Is her existence more ethereal than sand? The following morning, Kei uses her key to enter Hiro's apartment to prepare him for going to school that day. She discovers Hiro and Miyako still asleep in flagrante delicto. (Kyosuke is waiting outside and doesn't see them.) The lovers do not awaken, and the tableaux causes Kei to run away in panicky tears. After the End Credits Kei continues to run, eventually collapsing on the road when her bad right knee gives out. Kyosuke rushes up to her with his bike and tries to comfort her, leaving his camera behind. The Kiss Miyako's surprise kiss on Hiro is dramatic. The music swells, light orbs fly, and all is right in Heaven. The image of the kiss in the visual novel is featured at TV Tropes as The Big Damn Kiss. It is regarded as one of the most epic kissing scenes ever depicted in a visual novel. Previous Episode | Next Episode Category:Episodes Category:Season 1